I was thinking of ways to circumvent the structure of the NHL. (That's what I do in spare time ) and an interesting thought came into my mind.

Obviously it would have to be a perfect scenario for this to even be possible and there would have to be a huge collaboration between the two teams, players, owners etc but let's just say it happened.

What if two teams, lets say Montreal and Ottawa for example, made a pact starting this off season, (since both teams seem to be out of the the playoff hunt now), each team would work directly together to help each other out in 3 year intervals. (It could be different amount, I just used 3).

Let me explain:

MTL is in dire need of a rebuild. Ottawa seems to be just at the cusp of being a good team (based off last year at least) but is missing a couple key players. What if both GM's convinced all the players involved to be traded between the two teams based on each others needs specifically? Example being what if MTL traded any player to Ottawa that they wanted to have in exchange for any bad players they wanted. Both cities are 1h30 mins away so the distance wouldn't be that big a of a deal for the players. No uprooting their families or anything. MTL would send any of its players over to Ottawa that Ottawa would need or want for the entirety of 3 seasons. Obviously Ottawa would have to move some of their lesser good players and contracts back to MTL in order for this to work.

Ultimately it would be like MTL would be Ottawa's farm team for 3 seasons straight. Adding players and removing players back forth as needed. (I don't know if there is an NHL rule against trading between teams multiple times but I'm assuming there isn't).

In the 3 seasons the players deemed to be "sent down" to MTL would get a chance to redeem themselves so it wouldn't be a death sentence or anything. If they play better, they traded back up to Ottawa at any time. This would give MTL some open spots to play youngsters big minutes at the NHL level and still learn. Chabot for example would be played 20+ mins every night and wouldn't have to worry about sticking with the club.

In the meantime all drafted players would play for the MTL camp each year to see who gets to play in MTL as there would be no space in Ottawa's all star team.

Ottawa is given a stud team to make 3 solid playoff runs in a row to go for the cup. After the 3rd season is over the two teams roles would change. Ottawa would play the farm club and MTL the big club.

OK so some major hurdles would have to be jumped for this to work logistically:

- The two teams would have to be richer teams that could afford to be a "farm club" for 3 years.
- The two teams Owners, Gm's, coaches and players would have to be on board. (I know realistically this isn't plausible but lets assume anyone who wasn't on board with it was traded and players who were, were added in their place)
- The two teams fans base would have to be somewhat the kind of fans that could see the vision of what both teams are trying to do and support it and would still go watch the "farm club" team at the almost full price. I imagine a slight cut in costs would mean ticket prices would a bit cheaper. The big club team obviously could charge more because the product would almost guarantee to be a strong one.

The biggest problem would be the NHL. Would they allow this? Could they somehow stop it? All things that would have to be thought about and verified.

Some pros and cons:

Pros:
- Big club gets all star team of quality players and replenishes injured players, bad players, under performing players at will whenever needed.
- Farm club although would have a weaker club, could benefit from having the youngsters playing big minutes. Since all recently drafted players wouldn't be given time to play with the big club, they'd be able to be given big minutes right away if needed. Noticing that many fans around the league are enjoying their team even if they are losing as long as the team has youngsters being given a chance to get better.

Cons:
- Their is always the possibility that one teams 3 year rosters wouldn't be as good as the other teams 3 year rosters. I could see this happening in the first turnover of roles but after that with the team playing farm club always focusing on developing talent, there should always be an influx of new good players coming in to either teams rosters each 3 years.
- Owner would have accept possibly 3 years of "rebuild" type profits. Hopefully the 3 good years in the playoffs would be enough to make up for it.

What do you guys think? Which teams would be the best suited for something like this?

This is team collusion. It is like having two firms agree to manipulate the price for a product and never have the price go down. If Nike and New Balance are selling Shoe XYZ at $69.99 and $74.99, respectfully, and they decide to collude and never have the price of Shoe XYZ to go under $85.00.

Eventually, more and more franchises would collude together to make "super-teams" with teams trading star players in exchange for a percentage of the profit of winning.

Yeah, this sounds very illegal. This was how some of the teams operated in the early days of the NHL. I can't remember the specifics, but two teams were owned by the same guy and he used one of them as a farm club, essentially.

I'm Gonna Say Good Planning but It Sound Pretty illegal.

True. The thing is they aren't affecting prices for gains in any tangible way........ Whats to say the farm club GM isn't just making bad trades and only focusing on rebuilding with youth? An argument can be made for any of the situations that could be considered collusion.

I get it though, this would be damn near impossible to have done and Im pretty sure the NHL would somehow find a way to put a stop to it.

As long as the player doesn't have a NTC, teams can trade whoever they want for whatever return they agree to.